


My sentiments exactly

by Sherctorrunning23



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, John Watson - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherlock - Freeform, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Soulmate AU, Teenlock, cuteness, sherlock and john - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 02:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10866699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherctorrunning23/pseuds/Sherctorrunning23
Summary: Could you love someone you’d only known for two minutes?John should have said no, but that would have been a lie.





	My sentiments exactly

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comment :)

When Sherlock was six, he broke his wrist whilst asleep in bed.

Well. _He_ doesn’t break his wrist: rather, his soulmate does, and, of course, the injury reflects itself exactly on Sherlock. He’s awoken by a horrible pain and screams as loudly as he can: his mother runs, his father runs, even his overweight brother runs, crowding around his bed as he cries and cries, watching the bright red bruises pop up all over his left arm. It’s happened before, of course it has, in the form of red scratches or red lumps on a banged head, even red spots all over his body from what must have been chickenpox, but never like this. Never this bad.

His father gently took it in his surgeon’s hands and winced. ‘A clean fracture. They must’ve fallen. Probably down some stairs, at this time of night.’

Sherlock sniffled. ‘Why would they do this to me?’

His mother laughed and pecks him on the top of his curly head. Sherlock noticed a faint yellow scrape down the side of her face, and smiled through his tears when he deduced that his father must have been scratched by Billy, their cat, again. ‘They don’t mean to, baby. And I’m sure you’ll do just the same.’

‘Or worse,’ Mycroft sneered, heading for the door now he knows Sherlock isn’t being murdered. ‘Goodnight, brother mine.’

The three of them watched him saunter away. ‘Did anyone else see the orange stain on his top lip?’ Sherlock’s father whispered.

Sherlock and his mother nodded. ‘Obviously,’ Sherlock muttered, hiccupping once. ‘It seems Myc’s soulmate’s been kissing around again, or he’s been whispering things to him.’ He couldn’t imagine what that was like, knowing the person you are destined to be with liked someone else, and he supposes it partially explains Mycroft’s constant anger. His voice was nice, when it piped up. It didn’t kiss other people.

His mother shrugged. ‘That’s what happens, darling. It’s all a part of growing up. You’ll know all about it, soon.’

Sherlock made a gagging noise. The bruises were fading: after the original pain, it stopped quite quickly, and he knew that in the morning his wrist would feel back to normal. His poor soulmate, he thought sadly. He’d be in a cast for weeks. ‘Never.’

His parents smiled fondly and left with a wave, and Sherlock settled back in his sheets, absentmindedly tracing the red bruises, and wondering just where his soulmate was, and, most of all, if he was ok.

The voice in his head whispered _ow, ow, ow_ and Sherlock whispered back, _my sentiments exactly._

*

‘So what colour is yours?’ Sarah fluttered her eyelashes, tracing the back of John’s hand gently. John smiled and pulled back his sleeves, revealing the large, dark blue bruise on his tanned skin. ‘Got that yesterday. Think they got hit by a ball.’

Sarah looked slightly disappointed. ‘I didn’t get hit by a ball yesterday!’

John couldn’t help but think _oh, thank god._ The voice in his head drawled back, _my sentiments exactly._

Sarah was still talking so John tuned back in, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he smiled as honestly as he could, taking her hand. He’d known from the moment he’d met Sarah that she wasn’t his soulmate: you weren’t meant to know, but John was sure that he would. His soulmate would be obvious.  

He didn’t want to explain this to Sarah, though, so instead he said, ‘Yeah, well. I didn’t even start getting them until I was three, so they’re a lot younger than me.’ At sixteen, John considered himself almost a man, and it made his brain hurt to think his soulmate was only _thirteen._ Barely a year eight! That was ridiculous-

‘Yeah, well.’ Sarah almost purred the words, hiking her leg over John’s waist. ‘They’re not around, are they?’

John smirked. Sarah wasn’t exactly the first girl he’d ever kissed, and he very much doubted that she would be the last, but he was sixteen and she was fit. He leaned in, puckering his lips, and kissed her, enjoying the feeling as they rolled backwards onto the grassy knoll outside the school.

It was almost as if it were planned.

John had been kissing Sarah for maybe half a minute when the first pain shot through his left arm. ‘Fuck!’ He swore, pushing her away, trying to push his sleeve up, but it was immediately followed by a second, burning pain, and then a third, and a fourth, until he was hiked in the grass, left arm clutched under him, curled in a ball. ‘Oh, shit.’

Sarah was speaking behind him, but John was too busy rolling up his sleeves, even as the pain continued, and his eyes widened at the line of blue _cuts_ , and in front of his astounded eyes, yet another blue line appeared, oozing blue blood around it.

_What were they doing?_

Finally, _finally,_ it stopped. John sprawled in the grass and covered his eyes. ‘Oh, fuck. Fuck.’

_How could they do this, when they knew it would hurt him, too?_

*

Sherlock had been clean for over six months when Mycroft finally, _finally_ let him out. There are explicit instructions: **Don’t** even try and contact James. **Don’t** go anywhere near drugs. **Don’t** run off. **Don’t** turn your phone off. Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, because Mycroft had to be stupid if he thought he was going anywhere near drugs or relapses or bad things that night. Firstly, he knew Mycroft would hunt him down. Secondly, he was not going through rehab again. Thirdly, Irene wouldn’t let him anywhere near drugs, and finally, he generally just wasn’t stupid. Drugs = bad. Clean = good.

The club was louder than Sherlock remembered, and brighter, which made his head ache and his eyes water, but at least he was out and around other people and not cooped up, bored out of his mind. There was so much to see here, almost too much (that’s what had gotten him started on the drugs in the first place – he tried to stay away from that), and everyone was _very_ attractive. Sherlock had never been a particularly sexual person, he’d always assumed it was cheating on his soulmate (he wouldn’t be making _that_ mistake again: his soulmate had been playing around since Sherlock was ten, they clearly didn’t care about him at all) but six months with just his left hand and a notebook filled with experiment had changed him. James would have said that was a very _human_ thing to say, with a sneer on his face and rolling his eyes, but James wasn’t here and Sherlock could do as he wanted.

Irene was on the other side of the club, chatting up an attractive redhead who was covered with tattoos, so Sherlock sauntered into the middle and started to dance, lost in the writhing bodies. His body was taking him where it wanted to go: he closed his eyes and assumed they would all avoid him, let him do as he wished-

_Oof._

Sherlock opened his eyes and glanced down at the small blond man who’d run into him. ‘Hello.’

The small blond man knocked back the tequila he was holding and smiled blurrily. He was highly intoxicated, much more than Sherlock, and Sherlock wasn’t exactly sober at this point. ‘Hey,’ the man grinned, pressing himself closer to Sherlock and pressing his hands on his waist. Sherlock felt a small shock through his clothes but dismissed it as the drink: nowadays, stimulants always had a slightly off effect on him. He peered at the man closely, but his deductions were slightly off and all he could really tell was that the man was training to be a surgeon, was a fan of physical activity and was about twenty-two, which was three years older than Sherlock.

‘You,’ the man slurred, ‘Are hot as fuck.’ He gripped Sherlock tighter, swaying with him in a totally rhythm-less circle. Sherlock mentally shrugged and let the man hold onto him, moving. The night was young, he was an addict, and the man was hot.

 _Seize the day,_ the voice said, much louder than usual, and Sherlock grinned. _My sentiments exactly._

Hotter in more ways that Sherlock had initially expected, it seemed. He was baking in his clothes, so hot that his shirt started sticking to him in seconds. The man was the same, wiping his brow and shaking his head as he tried to rid himself of the sudden hot flush. Sherlock looked around in surprise, wondering if the heating had malfunctioned. He also wondered why he had the urge to lick the man’s sweat droplets off his forehead, but decided to keep this to himself-

‘The man gripped the back of his neck and hauled him down to his height, clashing their lips together. Sherlock gripped his wrist and gasped at the burning sensation exactly where the man was holding him in a vice-like grip. What was _wrong_ with him? Had he been roofied? That was so ironic he wanted to laugh…except he wanted to kiss the man more.

And more.

And more.

The next morning Sherlock woke up on an unfamiliar floor, with a name in his head, and with Irene’s voice whispering in his ear, ‘Hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’ve got a little something on your neck.’

*

He simply had to accept it: no one would hire someone who couldn’t answer whether or not they were with their soulmate.

Every single time John went in for an interview, the first thing they said was ‘Oh! A bond mark! Looks like a lucky someone’s found their soulmate!’

The second thing they said was, ‘What do you mean, you lost him?’

The third thing they said was ‘Well, Mr Watson. We don’t have anything at the moment. We’ll let you know if something comes up.’

John had been looking for almost three months, and nothing had come up. Not even fucking Lidl wanted him, and it was all because of his stupid bracelet.

That’s what he called it: the line of dark blue skin that encircled his left wrist, exactly like a bracelet. He’d seen bond marks before: he’d touched both of his parents’, marvelling at the slightly puckered skin, but he’d never seen one quite so prominent as his. It was so noticeable that it was always the first thing anyone commented on, and then he had to tell them that no, he wasn’t with his soulmate, because all he could remember about his soulmate was curly dark hair, a masculine voice and brilliantly soft lips. He didn’t have a name, a number, an age, even a nationality. He had nothing.

So when Mike came up to him and said he had a job _and_ a relatively cheap flat, John was pretty much ready to take anything he could get, even if it was a job as a GP and a flat with a complete stranger who Mike decided he should be introduced to right away. As they walked, Mike talked about the stranger’s slight tendency to play the violin in the middle of the night (weird), read your mind (weirder) and whip dead bodies (weirdest) and John got more and more uncomfortable as they climbed the stairs at St Barts, walked down a long corridor and headed for one of the labs. Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Maybe he should just go and live in Hyde Park with the ducks, they seemed happy enough-

Mike opened the door, and John’s mouth fell open. ‘ _You._ ’

The man looked up. His curls flopped in front of his eyes, which sparkled in the strangest blue/green colour John had ever seen. His mouth curved into a slight smile. A bright red mark snaked its way around his neck, ending with what looked like a thumb curving up to just touch the crest of his chin. ‘Ah, John Watson. Took you long enough.’

John was in shock. Mike also seemed to be in shock. The man was not in shock, instead standing up and examining his fingernails. ‘I’m glad you returned in one piece from the war. I was worried when I woke up, for the second time in my life, with a burning pain caused by you, but it healed. Left a scar, though, much as your bond mark did. You couldn’t really have chosen a more obvious place, John.’

‘You knew who I was?’ John said, blinking rapidly. The man rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, John, of course I did. We were both drunk: clearly, you were drunker. I knew you’d remember parts of me, so I decided to let you come to me. I didn’t expect it to take eight years, of course, but you got here eventually. That’s what matters.’

John was speechless, literally speechless. Mike muttered something under his breath and pointed at the door before slinking away, blushing furiously. The man rubbed the back of his neck and smiled, for the first time looking slightly nervous. ‘Hmm. John-‘

John pulled back his right hand and punched the man square in the jaw.

Except, of course, it was exactly like punching himself. Both of them staggered, simultaneously, before John tripped over a chair leg and fell onto the man, knocking them both onto the ground.

The man nodded, clutching his cheek. ‘I suppose I deserved that. You know, that shade of blue suits you.’

‘You dick,’ John choked out, before he put his hand exactly over his bond mark and kissed the man. Something inside him clicked, and for the first time he felt secure and settled, safe inside himself. ‘I love you. Let’s get married.’

The man smiled, and reached up, kissing John quickly on the lips. ‘Obviously. The name’s Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Suits you,’ John teased. He felt a bit light-headed, but he suspected that when you were with Sherlock you felt like that a large amount of the time. He’d found his soulmate. Nothing else mattered. ‘Maybe I’ll find a job, now.’

Sherlock didn’t reply. Instead, he brought John closer to him, tucking his head under his chin, and John lay on top of him, on the floor of the St Barts laboratory, and listened to the only heart that belonged to him beat, steady and fast, in his left ear. ‘Or we could just stay here,’ he corrected, embraced in warmth, embraced in love. Could you love someone you’d only known for two minutes?

John should have said no, but that would have been a lie.

They lay in silence, until John whispered, ‘I’ve waited my whole life for you, and the whole thing was worth it.’

And at exactly the same time the voice in John’s head, and Sherlock, murmured, ‘My sentiments exactly.’  


End file.
